Power Rangers: Defenders of Earth
by William Lamb
Summary: AU to my other story. When Lord Zedd returns and the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers go missing, Zordon must choose a new team of Rangers to defend Earth. ON HIATUS!


_Author's Note: For those of you who are familiar with my other story, Power Rangers Patronus Force, you will no doubt recognize most of the events that will take place in this story. Defenders Of Earth is basically a recycling of Patronus Force with all of the Harry Potter elements removed. As such, I will be using quite a few chapters and various ideas from Patronus Force that I have used as well as those that were scrapped. This means that I will be using altered versions of chapters from Patronus Force as well as writing new ones.  
_

_For those of you who are curious, I am using elements from both MMPR: The Movie (since those events were taking place in an alternate universe from the show) and the TV series. I hope that you enjoy this story.  
_

**Chapter One.**

The moon.

Earth's only satellite and the fifth-largest in the entire Solar System; being one-quarter of the Earth's diameter. To the people of the planet, it continued to be most prominent to their culture; serving as a most convenient timepiece due to its regular phases as well as serving as the basis for many of the oldest calendars.

To many, the moon was a thing of beauty. Something that lovers and dreamers would often look to while their minds occupied themselves with whatever pleasant thoughts passed through their minds while others would dread the coming of the natural satellite's fullness phase that occurred once every month.

Unknown but to only a few of the planet Earth's population, the moon also served as the home of evil. For on the spot where the sides of Light and Dark met stood a palace that seemed to have grown naturally from the moon's very surface. Originally, the palace had been built as a sanctuary by an ancient order of wizards who had fled the sector of space called M51 due to that galaxy's fall to an evil creature called Master Vile but had been taken over by the being called Lord Zedd, who had proceeded to corrupt and destroy the good magic of the palace and replace it with the powers of Darkness in order to use it as his base of operations from which he could launch his attempts to conquer the planet Earth - attempts that were thwarted by Zordon and his Power Rangers.

And then, in the year 1995, Zedd was forced to withdraw from his conquest of Earth in order to replace the resources that had been dwindled by Ivan Ooze and for three years the palace had remained empty.

Until now.

It was through the halls of this palace that the creature walked. The creature was humanoid with blackish-blue skin and it's face resembled that of a savage ape's. As he walked, his gold armored boots caused his footsteps to echo in the dark, damp halls. The creature arrived at the massive stone doors which opened immediately, which meant a wide variety of possible reasons why the creature's master had summoned him. And none of them were good.

The wings on the creature's back rustled nervously as he entered the giant throne room. On the far side of the throne room was a balcony that overlooked the blue planet called Earth and on the balcony was a an Asian-looking woman wearing a revealing dressed in ghastly brown gown-like robes and a hat with two white horns. Upon his entrance, the woman turned to glare at the creature. This woman was Rita Repulsa - Empress of Evil and the wife of Lord Zedd. Beside her stood her brother, Rito Revolto. Unlike Rita, who was human in her appearance, Rito resembled an over-sized skeleton that had a military camouflage pattern painted on one side of his bony body. The creature often wondered whether Rito had been created by Master Vile or if he had been a human transformed into his present form. He was also quite stupid and clumsy and he stank rather badly.

But it was the being that sat on the massive stone throne that stood on a rotating riser that commanded the most attention. To say that the being's appearance was grotesque was rather mild if not an outright understatement.

The being was humanoid in form and had the appearance of having had every ounce of skin removed from his body and the exposed muscles had a burnt look to them. The being's scalp had also been removed to reveal his pulsing brain while transparent tubes pumped a dark fluid throughout the being's body. To further worsen the being's appearance was the chrome silver exo-skeleton that had been fused to his body and spine while the humanoid creature glared at the world through the scarlet visor of his skull-like face mask. In his hand, the being held a silver metal staff with a stylized '_Z' _head.

This being was known as Lord Zedd; the Emperor of Evil and he was the creature's lord and master. Zedd immediately turned his attention to the creature and spoke in a dark voice.

"Goldar."

At this simple use of his name, the creature shuddered as he bowed to Zedd. " You sent for me, my Emperor?" The creature, Goldar, asked with a rough, growling voice.

"Is everything prepared?" Zedd demanded to know.

"The preparations are almost complete, Lord Zedd." replied Goldar. "Soon, your forces will be ready for the final invasion of Earth."

"Excellent!" Zedd declared "With the last of those miserable do-gooders trapped inside of my Dimension of Banishment, Earth is mine for the taking."

This sentence caused Goldar to smile. During their temporary retreat, Zedd had devised a plan to finally rid himself of the Power Rangers and enable him to conquer the planet Earth. Upon their return, Zedd had captured the Rangers one at a time and had imprisoned them in a pocket dimension that existed between time and space and had cast a variation of spells in order to ensure that the Rangers were never rescued.

However, there was one item that had concerned Goldar ever since he had learned from Finster - Zedd's chief Monster Maker- of their existence on the planet that had been Lord Zedd's objective for so many years.

" But sire, what if Zordon manages to rescue the Rangers?" he asked.

At this, the evil being laughed "The Dimension of Banishment was created as the ultimate prison. It's quantum signature was designed to constantly change, which renders the Command Center's scanners completely useless in any and all attempts to pinpoint its _exact _location!" Zedd declared "Zordon will have no choice but to stand by helplessly as I punish the city of Angel Grove!"

Once more, Zedd laughed and Rita smiled cruelly at the thought of finally conquering the planet Earth.

* * *

In the desert outside of the city was a building. It's exterior was painted to match the surrounding desert as to avoid being spotted from the air and a great variety of enchantments kept the building from being found by other types of detection used by the people of Earth.

Inside, a short robot worked furiously at the controls of the futuristic computer systems located within the building's main chamber. It's torso was a bright red with a glowing yellow lightning bolt while it's head had the appearance of an inflated hockey puck.

" Aye-yi-yi!" exclaimed the robot. " I can't locate them on any of the scanners!"

In response, a booming voice filled the room; a voice that came from the giant floating head within the energy tube that stood in the center of the room. The head was bald and was twenty feet from chin to forehead. The head's eyes were filled with the same worry that a parent would have in the case of a missing child.

" YOU MUST KEEP TRYING, ALPHA." the floating head said "IF THE RANGERS ARE NOT FOUND SOON, THE EARTH WILL BE IN GRAVE DANGER!"

" I'm trying, Zordon!" the robot, Alpha, cried as he continued to frantically examine the computer consoles "But the Rangers are not showing up on any of the scanners; it is as if they have fallen off the face of the planet! Aye-yi-yi! What a time for Lord Zedd to return! And it was bad enough with Ivan running around."

"THEN IT IS QUITE APPARENT AS TO WHAT WE MUST DO IF THE RANGERS HAVE BEEN SENT BEYOND OUR REACH!" Zordon stated. " IF WE CANNOT LOCATE THE RANGERS, THEN WE WILL HAVE TO ACTIVATE BILLY'S DEFENDER INITIATIVE."

At this, Alpha gave a start.

"Zordon! You don't mean forming a new team of Rangers!"

"THAT IS CORRECT, ALPHA. PLEASE BEGIN PREPARING THE MORPHERS AND THEN, BEGIN SCANNING ANGEL GROVE FOR ANY POSSIBLE CANDIDATES. MEANWHILE, I SHALL CONTINUE SCANNING THE VARIOUS POCKET DIMENSIONS FOR TOMMY AND THE OTHERS."

"Yes Zordon."

As Alpha worked, Zordon sighed to himself. He had long been afraid that something of this nature might happen but it still came as a shock. After the defeat of Ivan Ooze at the hands of the Rangers, Lord Zedd had left the Earth's moon and the Rangers had been given leave so that they could have time for themselves. The past three years had been peaceful ones and Zordon had hoped that the peace would last much longer before the next threat to Earth's survival reared its ugly head.

And now, Lord Zedd had returned and the Rangers had suddenly gone missing. Zordon had a terrible feeling that his Rangers had been imprisoned inside one of Zedd's Dark Dimensions; one that would be close to impossible to locate and if that was the case, then the need for a new set of Rangers would be needed.

The planet Earth and those who lived on it _must _be protected.


End file.
